xml-dev - Re: A processing instruction for robots

["Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@allette.com.au>]

From: tbray@textuality.com <tbray@textuality.com>

 >Walter is right on both counts, but I'm having trouble getting
comfortable
>with his PI idea.  Not violently against it, but two things make me
>uncomfortable.  First of all, PIs basically suck.  Having said that, if
you
>gotta use them, this is the kind of thing to use them for.

If PIs suck, then perhaps they suck in the same way that using #defines
in C++
does or the SQLJ preprocessor does:  it can be a sign of insufficient
analysis in
the whole system (perhaps for legitimate reasons: the need may have
emerged
over time) or because of habit or to clearly demarcate different
processing
inputs to simplify subsequent phases or because of a deficiency in the
underlying language.

But this is not to allow that PIs suck in the first place.

Actually, to use the C++, I think PIs correspond to pragmas more than
anything.

Rick Jelliffe


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